Lessons from the Greatest Traders
JACK D. SCHWAGER is a recognized industry expert in futures and hedge funds and the author of a number of widely acclaimed financial books. He is currently a principal of PortfolioFit (portfoliofitadvisors.com), an advisory firm that specializes in constructing tailor-made futures and FX managed account portfolios for clients, and the co-;portfolio manager for the ADM Investor Services Diversified Strategies Fund, a portfolio of futures and FX managed accounts. Mr. Schwager is also one of the founders of Fund Seeder (Fundseeder.com), a platform designed to find undiscovered trading talent worldwide and connect unknown successful traders with sources of investment capital. Mr. Schwager is the inventor of the Jack Schwager Commodity Index (JSCI) family, a set of dynamically adjusted commodity indexes that incorporate spread structure, systematic inputs, and volatility-based risk adjustments. The indexes are scheduled to be launched in early 2014 in cooperation with Aquantum AG and UBS. Mr. Schwager is perhaps best known for his best-selling series of interviews with the greatest hedge fund managers of the last three decades: Market Wizards (1989), The New Market Wizards (1992), Stock Market Wizards (2001), and Hedge Fund Market Wizards (2012). His latest book Market Sense and Nonsense, a compendium of investment misconceptions, was published in November 2012. He is also the author of the three-volume Schwager on Futures series and Getting Started in Technical Analysis. Mr. Schwager is a frequent seminar speaker and has lectured on a range of analytical topics including the characteristics of great traders, investment fallacies, hedge fund portfolios, managed accounts, technical analysis, and trading system evaluation.
Foreword by Peter L. Brandt xi Preface xv Chapter One Failure Is Not Predictive 1 Chapter Two What Is Not Important 9 Chapter Three Trading Your Own Personality 15 Chapter Four The Need for an Edge 23 Chapter Five The Importance of Hard Work 27 Chapter Six Good Trading Should Be Effortless 35 Chapter Seven The Worst of Times, the Best of Times 41 Chapter Eight Risk Management 47 Chapter Nine Discipline 61 Chapter Ten Independence 69 Chapter Eleven Confidence 73 Chapter Twelve Losing Is Part of the Game 77 Chapter Thirteen Patience 83 Chapter Fourteen No Loyalty 93 Chapter Fifteen Size Matters 103 Chapter Sixteen Doing the Uncomfortable Thing 115 Chapter Seventeen Emotions and Trading 125 Chapter Eighteen Dynamic versus Static Trading 135 Chapter Nineteen Market Response 145 Chapter Twenty The Value of Mistakes 157 Chapter Twenty-One Implementation versus Idea 163 Chapter Twenty-Two Off the Hook 167 Chapter Twenty-Three Love of the Endeavor 173 Appendix: OptionsUnderstanding the Basics 177 Notes 185 About the Author 189